The Great iOS Game Search: On A Tilt

I am simply convinced that Apple’s iOS platform has a lot of potential for great gaming experiences. The powerful hardware, responsive touchscreens, and gorgeous displays of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch are brimming with possibility. Unfortunately, the App Store is filled with shovelware and games that don’t do the OS justice. As such, I have decided to go on a search to find those digital diamonds in the rough that are not only great games, but are designed for the platform as well. 

On a Tilt perfectly exemplifies the difference between a good and a great game, only it winds up on the wrong side of the fence than the one it was probably aiming for.

The iOS App Store is filled with terrific titles that sell for next to nothing, yet manage to squeeze admirable amounts of creativity and fun out of simple ideas. On the surface, On a Tilt sounds like it might fit right in. The game presents you with four bars on screen, two horizontal and two vertical. In each bar is a tiny strip that is controlled by tilting the device. As each pair of bars (one vertical, one horizontal) is on an opposite axis from the other, you must twist your device (and your brain) in crazy ways so that the strips in your control line up with green target areas. 

This does make for a certain amount of fun, but On a Tilt never manages to overcome the feeling that you’re playing around with a hidden programmer’s tool rather than a full game.

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Best of the Decade: Infinity Blade

Infinity Blade

Platform: iOS (iPhone and iPad)

Release Date: December 9, 2010

Publisher: N/A

Developer: Chair Entertainment, Epic Games

Let me admit right off the bat that this entry is more ceremonial than any other I’ve allowed myself to make so far. I picked Geometry Wars with a similar goal, to celebrate what the game represented as much as the game itself, but Infinity Blade is an even stronger case of this.

I’ve been avoiding picks like this on purpose. Adding items like these to a list is kind of cheap and, for whatever little it’s worth, I didn’t want to devalue my list with cheating entries like concepts, entire series of games, and that sort of thing.

That said, even though this is a last-minute entry and clearly hasn’t had the time to mature like others on this list, I truly feel it is deserving of its spot. Let me explain. 

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Street Fighter IV iPhone Review

Street Fighter on the iPhone is something that by all rights should not even exist, much less in any form that actually resembles what a normal human being would consider a playable game. It should be a cheap cash in. It should be an abomination. It should have no redeeming value whatsoever.

I mean, come on. It's Street Fighter! On the iPhone! We are talking about a fighting game that represents the ultimate in precision controls, precise timing, and skillful input. Slapping a game like that onto a portable device with no physical buttons should be nothing short of blasphemous.

But yet, here we are. Street Fighter has been released for Apple's touchscreen device, and it doesn't suck. Color me surprised.

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Lazy Afternoon Gaming

It was early one lazy afternoon and I found myself picking up my iPhone for some light entertainment, as I am oft tempted to do on such days. This was primarily because my cat had also decided it was a lazy afternoon and settled down for a long sleep in my lap, trapping me in my rather uncomfortable chair with only the iPhone in reach. 

I swiped aimlessly left and right through my screens of apps, and it occurred to me that I had rather a large number of games on my phone. It prompted me to question whether this was a proper use of my time and money. After all, my to-do list is long indeed. Wasn't there something more important I should be doing instead?

I briefly became frightened by the idea that I had been chucking away valuable playing time on these worthless little time-wasting morsels. When did I decide it would be a good idea to purchase so many of these things? Aren't they just so much junk food cluttering up what should be the gourmet meal of my gaming feast?

After a little thinking, and a little gaming, I decided that my fears were unfounded. 

First off there's the argument that the iPhone is a perfectly legitimate gaming platform that really can do more than just provide mobile versions of trashy Internet Flash games. While this is certainly true, the game I was playing when the troubled thoughts began to cross my mind was not what one would call the height of iPhone gaming achievement, so this argument is a little beside the point. 

No, the real issue here is what gaming is truly all about: fun. 

It is remarkably easy to forget that sometimes. I frequently drown myself in conversations of games as art and storytelling through interactive media and other such nonsense and I develop an aversion to these simpler pleasures. 

Well, if not an aversion then at least a hefty sense of guilt when I allow myself to partake in them. 

But these little bite-sized chunks of gaming on the go have reminded me that it's healthy to let all that haughty stuff go every once in a while. No, of course I don't want them to devour all of my time, but the same can be said for heavier fare. Moderation is a virtue. 

Just because I'm guiding a rollercoaster around a track by tilting my phone instead of guiding my protagonist to his ultimate destiny by immersing myself in a vast fictional world doesn't mean I should feel bad about it.

It's true I won't even play some of these casual time-wasters more than once or twice. Forgettable? Perhaps. But so is a stick of gum and a pack of that costs just barely less than some of these games.

As for the more expensive ones, I'm sure I spent more than their price of admission on equally forgettable and useless arcade games, back in that magical time when those used to actually exist.  

I have decided that my protagonist isn't going anywhere. I can get back to him later. Right now I have some people that would very much like to go around a loop really fast.    

iPhone Game Review: iDracula

iDracula - Undead Awakening, aside from being an example of a game with a totally nonsensical name, is also an example of a game that shouldn’t work nearly as well on a platform like the iPhone as it does. For the price of $2.99 it’s currently selling for, it’s an absolute no-brainer purchase for any iPhone owning gamer who happens to like to shoot things.

According to the game’s description, you play as a vampire hunter that is himself being hunted by a slew of fantastical (not to mention cool-looking) creatures, including the fearsome Dracula himself.

None of that matters.

You’re a dude with a bunch of awesome weapons and your goal is to kill as many moving things as possible. That’s all you need to know, but it’s enough to propel the game into seriously addicting status.

The premise of iDracula, like many of the games best suited for the iPhone, is dead simple, but contains enough depth to keep you constantly coming back for more small chunks of exciting gameplay. It’s essentially what would be called a dual stick shooter on a console, only stuffed onto the diminutive iPhone.

There are two virtual dials on screen. One controls your movement while the other controls aiming and firing by holding in the direction of the thing you want to kill. There is a small learning curve to the controls due to the lack of physical feedback, but especially due to the large amount of screen real-estate given to the control dials, it doesn’t take long before you’re blasting things with ease.

The biggest problem with the controls isn’t actually controlling your character, it’s the fact that the dials (and your thumbs rested upon them) take up a decent amount of space on screen and monsters are not afraid to sneak under your digits and attack you when you can’t see them. This isn’t a constant problem or a game-killer by a long shot, but it will be an occasional frustration.

Another small point worth noting is that switching among your large number of weapons (assuming you survive long enough to collect a large number of weapons) can be a little tricky. A bar at the bottom of the screen allows you to slide back and forth between weapon icons, but it’s both a little hard to access and not always as responsive as it should be. It’s more of an annoyance than a true hindrance though.

Still, the shooting will definitely keep you coming back for more. There are a wide variety of creatures to shoot, many of which act differently and require slightly different strategies to dispatch. Aiding you in this is a sizable number of cool weapons, from traditional fare like pistols and shotguns to more exciting armaments like flame throwers, machine guns, and grenade launchers.

There are four modes of play which are admittedly not substantially different from one another, but they do provide just enough variety to allow you to change things up often enough so you never get bored.

Survival and Super Survival are variations on the classic concept of seeing how long you can survive against never ending waves of enemies. Ammo, new weapons, and even powerups can drop from defeated foes, so you must constantly keep on your toes and collect these items while not being surrounded or overwhelmed by the quickly escalating number of enemies.

Rush is similar, but instead of starting out with a pistol and a small number of enemies, you choose one of three top-tier weapons with unlimited ammo and are immediately dropped into terrifyingly large numbers of enemies coming at you from all sides. It’s truly tough to survive very long here, but it’s surely addicting to try.

Finally, Wave Attack (which was added in a post-release update, along with one of the other modes, new weapons, items, enemies, levels, and other tweaks) sets you against waves of enemies, each with a beginning and an end. The enemies drop gold which you can then spend between rounds on ammo, new weapons, or health. Deciding how to spend this money to best survive what’s next adds a satisfying touch of strategy to the proceedings.

In all of these modes, killing enemies gains you access to perks, which are essentially level up bonuses like increased health, faster reload times, or greater damage. Some of them are even riskier and more creative, such as armor that slows you down or an immortality perk that gives you 30 seconds of unlimited health followed by instant death. Choosing which one you want out of the four random choices every time you gain access to a new perk adds another small dose of strategy to the game and definitely increases replay value as each time you play will be ever so slightly different.

iDracula’s description promises “the most intense game in the App Store”. I can’t vouch for the entirety of the App Store, but I can say that after spending many hours playing this supremely addictive game, it is certainly the most intense iPhone game I have played yet and one of the best deals out there for iPhone gamers at its low price.

No action game loving iPhone fan should be without this game.